Antarctica Round the World Race Recipe - Food from
the Deep South

Ages 11 - 16. A recipe
inspired by the annual 25th of December Round the World Race
at the South Pole, easy to make.Food technology, cookery, science

The tradition and the
recipe

Every year on Christmas Day at the Amundsen-Scott
South Pole scientific research station Antarctica there is a
tradition of a "Race Around the World".

The
distance to be covered is 3 laps around the world through every
line of longitude, which because this is at the South Pole only
comes to about 2 miles total. Walkers, runners, and every sort
of conveyance and fancy dress allowed.

Christmas in Antarctica
comes in the middle of summer, so there is 24 hours of daylight
and a pretty good chance of getting blue skies and cold weather,
the average temperature for December at the South Pole is -27.5°C
(-17.5°F).

The ceremonial South Pole markerreplaced
annually with a new design

The Race Around the World, the people
and vehicles in the distance are right over at the other
side of the world, 180 degrees of longitude away.

Making it snow at the South Pole

Recipe

"Recipe" is pushing it a bit to be honest, it's more
of just a list of ingredients put together with no cooking
ability involved, though that may be a good thing.

Ingredients:

Straw and flag to denote the South
Pole in the middle of the next ingredient.

Meringue base, I bought a box of
8 from the supermarket for not a lot, you could make
your own of course.

Small amounts of a variety of fresh fruits.
I did this in August in the northern hemisphere, so
there was a lot of choice, I used:

Pineapple

Grapes

Strawberries

Raspberries

Cut them into pieces that look like they are pointing
in the same direction and racing around the South Pole
marker. If you're feeling adventurous you could name
them, or make little vehicles too.

Icing sugar, I bought it in a shaker
for about 4 times as much as a bag of plain icing sugar.
I did this to avoid hunting in the corner cupboard in
the kitchen for the sieve I am 50% certain we have.
Use it as snow - obviously.

Double cream, to go in the middle
of the meringue base, I like double cream, less delicious
alternatives are available. You could whip it and carve
it into sastrugi, low lying wind sculptured snow ridges
that lie parallel with the direction of the wind.

Plate to put it on, I imagine this
would look very odd unless it was a plain white plate.

Other teaching points

I like the simplicity of this and also the complexity of the
underlying idea.

It's an easy thing to make and pretty
cheap too, if you're a teacher it won't cost much in resources,
looks good, grabs the imagination and tastes delicious. It would
act as a good introduction or end point to a number of questions
that can go in a number of directions:

Round
the world race

Why is it a round the world race? - this addresses ideas
of the way the world is and the position of the South Pole
on it.

How can you run around the world three times while only
going 2 miles?